A New Section of the Berlin Wall Was Just Discovered

In June, a group of people out for a walk in Berlin came upon something that would change their afternoon—and one of the world's most famous historical structures as we know it. Behind the bushes on the edge of the Südpanke-Park, near the modern-day headquarters of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, they found a 20-meter (65.6-foot) section of the Berlin Wall, reports The Local Germany.

Officials from the Berlin Wall Foundation were initially perplexed over the rediscovered section because it didn't have the curved top typical of the wall, but after analyzing the stretch they were able to identify it as part of a shorter wall that separated the so-called "death strip" from East Berlin, reports Der Tagesspiegel. (The "death strip" was a buffer zone between the two walls where guards in watch towers would shoot anyone trying to escape East Germany.) The section was immediately given protection as part of an historic monument.

The announcement of the 'new' section of the wall is timely: The Berlin Wall was completed 57 years ago on August 13, 1961, as a border between East and West Berlin. It was demolished on November 9, 1989, and only a few sections of it remain: at tourist points including the open-air, 4,300-foot East Side Gallery (the longest remaining stretch), the Berlin Wall Memorial, and Checkpoint Charlie, a former crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War.

A Berlin resident in 1999 found a 262-foot stretch of the wall but kept it a secret until early 2018, and experts say more discoveries could be on the way. "There can always be new smaller sections hidden somewhere around the city," Berlin Wall Foundation representative Gesine Beutin told German publication Deutsche Welle.